Francqui Chair 2025-2026

Created in 1933, the Belgian Francqui Chairs aim to promote cooperation between Belgian universities and to highlight academic excellence.

They allow an invited professor to give a series of lectures and conferences, including an inaugural lecture open to the public, encouraging scientific exchange and fostering meetings between researchers.

Frédéric Merkt is full professor of physical chemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich). His main research interests are in molecular spectroscopy, molecular optics, cold chemistry and precision tests of fundamental physical theories. He received several awards, including the Swiss National Latsis Prize (1999), the William F. Meggers Award of Optica (formerly Optical Society of America (2010)), the van't Hoff Prize of the German Bunsen Society for Physical Chemistry (2012), the Otto Bayer Award of the Bayer Science & Education Foundation (2014), and two ERC advanced grants (2008, 2017). He is member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the European Physical Society and of Optica.

The Inaugural lectures : 

"100 years after its birth, testing quantum physics with ever-increasing precision: 
the cases of hydrogen and helium"
Wednesday 10 December 2025 at 6:30 p.m

Before this inaugural lecture there will be a mini symposium aiming at presenting the different research activities centered around quantum physics in UCLouvain

16h - 18h Quantum physics in UCLouvain

Register here


The following lectures : 

Tuesday, February 10, 2026 – 2:00 PM

Time and Frequency Metrology : The Swiss Frequency-Distribution Network and Its Implementation in AMO Physics Laboratories

Friday, February 13, 2026 – 10:45 AM

Field Sensing and Atom and Molecule Optics with Highly Excited Rydberg States

Tuesday, February 17, 2026 – 2:00 PM

Ion-Molecule Chemistry Near 0 Kelvin: Beyond the Langevin Model

Friday, February 20, 2026 – 10:45 AM

Molecular Spectroscopy: Advances and Future Directions